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Thursday, December 31, 2009

Despite the energy, the craziness, the excitement, everything that's going down this New Year's Eve, I can't help but miss everyone who's not here. So instead of talk about the new year, I'm going to think back. So it's time to make some lists. Keep in mind, these won't make sense. The jokes, the songs, shows, movies, even if they're not from this year, they had an impact on me in 2009, and I'm sure they'll continue to in the new decade.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Feeling inspired to write by my cousin Jeremy's wife, Veronica. She announced this Christmas to her in-laws, my extended family, that she's preggos. So my props go out to Vern and Jeremy. I, honestly, cannot think of anyone else more suited to be parents. She has a fantastic blog herself (Vern, I'm talking about) and just started one to record what's going on with the pregnancy. Seeing that she has blogged 24 times in December alone is two things: a major inspiration and a self-esteem murderer. I don't know if I will ever be able to do a blog post a night, pretty much every night. I'd love for my blog to be that way, though. And I made it a New Year's Resolution last year to blog at least once a week - a resolution on which I completely and totally failed. But a review of those (and a new list) is yet to come.

I suppose I feel forced, for some reason, to talk about where I am and what I'm doing rather than just my random thoughts or opinions. Of which there are many. But a lot is happening these days. I guess, actually, a lot has been happening since late May. Fools, birthday, ending school, moving, doing all that madness over the summer (which I still haven't blogged about. Hermph), moving here, settling in. And before we knew it it was October and December exams and now here we are on Christmas break. God, how the time has flowwwwn.

I also may give the blog a re-vamp. I'll try that out.

So for now, since I should be getting to bed, I'll tell you I'm in DC, with my Dad and Tony, doing New Year's. Then back to Canada and kick off the rest of 2010. Happy New Years, folks!

Friday, December 18, 2009

Things that have been on my mind this "Holiday Season". I don't want an answer to these questions. I just want to send them out into the universe and hope I find some answers myself.

The stand-up comedian, Jim Gaffigan, once did a skit where he talked about what led to the creation of the ridiculous traditions we follow at Christmas. "Okay, cut down that tree, put it in here. Take all these lights, and put 'em out theeere." And that decorating for Christmas sounds like the behaviour of a drunk guy. "'Honey, why...is there a...pine treeee...in our living room?' 'I LIKE IT! And we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna decorate it...fer Jesus. And then I'm gonna hang my socks over the fireplace. Fill 'em with candy...maybe I'll tie some leaves to the ceiling, see if I can get some action.'" It is weird, you have to admit.

Though there are millions and millions of Christmas songs in the world, there are none or few Hannukah songs. People out there are Jewish. Are they just not the ones making songs for the Holidays?

Why do we hang icicle lights from our roofs? Sure, they look pretty, but icicles would never actually appear on houses south of the Arctic, unless you were really unlucky. Who are we fooling?

Another thing about outside-light-decorating. If one person on the block doesn't do it, everyone looks at their house and shakes their heads and privately wonder why they don't have any gosh-darn Christmas spirit. But they never stop to consider that maybe that person isn't going to be in the country for Christmas. Or that they didn't have time, energy, or an outside outlet with which to decorate.

Someone said "Merry Christmas" to me for the first time this season. How do we decide when to start saying that? December 18th seems uncharacteristically late for society, but if someone says it around the 10th, we would scoff and then freak out that Christmas was only 15 days away and we hadn't bought anyone presents yet.

When you live far away from relatives, and your parents are divorced, and your brother is away at college, you often end up having three or four Christmases. This happened to us last year (Trinidad, DC, and lastly Michigan for the real day) and the whole magic and mystery of Christmas from when we were kids was gone by the time the 25th rolled around.

About that magic and mystery of Christmas as a kid. The best part of Christmas for me was sneaking into my brother's room at 4 am to wake him up and tell him it was Christmas and to find him already awake, reading a book and glancing at his clock every five minutes. We would hang out until around 7, when we deemed it late enough to go get our parents, who would inevitably groan and have to make coffee and get the cameras before we could start. We would watch them take every sip of their coffee, waiting until that last drop, when our dad would turn to our mom and say, "Wanna get started?" And the sad thing is, that's all over now.

Remember the days when we had no idea what we were getting for Christmas? I can list four or five things I know, for sure, I'm getting this year. When did that happen?

It's Christmas. No, it's not, it's December 18th. But we call the entire season "Christmas", don't we? Or "The Holidays", or "The Holiday Season", if you're being PC. In an ideal world, Christmas would be December 24th, 9 pm, until December 25th, 11:59 pm.

Christmas is supposed to be the time when we come together as loved ones, and show how much we appreciate each other. Why do we have to have a stressful, loud, caffeine and sugar-fueled international holiday on which to do this?

They say that Christmas is the hardest time to be away from the people you love. For me, it's Halloween and New Years. For three years in a row, Jamie and I had our amazing "Last MSN Conversation of 200_", consisting of only emoticons and ending with o) and IHP. Then, two minutes after the clock struck twelve, we called each other and yelled and screamed. And Halloween - I don't think it's going out on a limb to say that it's the Core's (if not, definitely Ed's) favorite holiday. Not being able to dress up, go Trick-or-Treating (and be yelled at to sing for our candy), and take a zillion pictures with those guys made that holiday the hardest so far. And I'm not feeling that about Christmas.